St. Petersburg to Göteborg: Tallinn, Estonia

Estonia

A small country with a population about one third of Sydney but big on cool. Hip and tech savvy. That's Estonia. Wifi available everywhere including long distance buses. Sort of puts our NBN chest-thumping in perspective. Anyway, we headed south west from St Petersburg through green countryside which got flatter and greener as we got closer to Estonia. Our conclusion that they must have a lot of rain proved correct as, no sooner than when we crossed the border than thick black clouds appeared and down it came in bucketfuls. As we were comfortably ensconced on the bus we couldn’t help thinking about the Coops on their bicycles and hoping they would avoid the deluge. They didn’t, as Siggy advised later. We followed the mob out from the bus station and caught a tram headed down to the old town. From there we legged it, dragging our wheely cases over and around its narrow and winding cobbled streets, missing the correct turn and going the long ways round. Great to walk on but tough on the wheely luggage.

Our Street, Uus

First things first. Dump the gear and get down town for a beer.

Nothing like a Kuld beer

Tallinn has a medieval vibe about it and it reminds me of old German towns like Rothenburg. Quite a distinctive German feel about it which you can see from the photos.

Stumbled across this lookout around 9pm. Nice little fog rolling in

Looks decidedly Russian wouldn't you say? It is in fact - The Alexander Nevsky cathedral. Somewhat less ostentatious than it's brother in St Petersburg.

360 degree panorama of the town square in Tallinn.

And not just German, although the Hanseatic peoples were among the first settlers here. Since then there's been a procession of invaders. Tallinn, in the early days was the first and most important trading port in the Baltic region. Not surprisingly, Kings from around the area all wanted to control the port, hence a succession of invasions from the Danes in the 13th century, followed by Swedes, more Germans and, most recently the Russians who first came during Peter the Great's reign. They seen off in the war of independence only to be re-occupied by the Russians, then the Germans again in WW2, giving the Ruskies yet another excuse to bomb the place to bits and annex the country again. Finally, the collapse of the Soviet Union saw them independent again and hopefully it will stay that way.

We are making great use of the Tallinn card (highly recommended should you ever visit). Free entry to all sorts of things and free public transport, not to mention the hop on-hop off bus which gets you out to more remote locations like the open air museum.

Open air museum: dry stone walls, thatched roof, slab cottages with dirt or stone floors. Folks were short in those days.

This little windmill sits atop a spindle and can be rotated by hand to face the prevailing wind.

Next stop, the Zoo, just because they had one and we had free entry to it. Having been lucky to have seen many of these animals living in the wild, it was a pretty sad state of affairs to see them so confined. Pictures have been censored to avoid public outcry. Nevertheless the local school-kids, resplendent in their hi-vis safety vests all seemed to enjoy the show. Gotta love the mums and dads dragging their precious little ones around in carts.

Took a sail 'n dine cruise in the Tallinn harbour last night. A very relaxing way to spend an evening as we stooged listlessly about in near calm conditions, listening to the cap'n regale our fellow passengers with salty old tales from days of yore. Even though it was delivered in Estonian, we could pick out, amongst guffaws, a few recognisable phrases like Francis Drake, Italian prostitues and Sydney Opera House, although, let me assure you, dear reader, not all in the same sentence. Finally our gold ear-ringed captain gave Sue and I, the only native English speakers on board, the same version of events. Turns out our ship, the Kajsamoor, was built in 1939 in Norway. Commandeered by the British Royal Navy during WWII, it was used to smuggle arms to the Norwegian Resistance fighters, fooling the Germans into the bargain. All those rollicking yarns gave us a big appetite for which we were fed a hearty soup and tasty fish pie before splicing the mainbrace with some genuine British Navy pussers rum. Aaaarrghhh, me hearties!!

Sailing vessel “Kajsamoor” (1939) is a two-masted galeass-rigged square-topsail wooden schooner built in 1939 in Aasheim og Valvatne Skibsbyggeri yard in Sagvåg Sunnhordland, Norway, as a typical North Sea cargo ship. The name comes from old Norse mythology and means The Mother of Wind Troll. I'm sure some one would want to know that (eh Malcolm!)

Not a lot of sail up top and precious little breeze.

Tallinn from the sea

Don't mess with us. We're packing a piece.

While waiting for our the Kajsamoor to arrive we took a tour of the Seaplane harbour, Estonia's maritime museum. Our Cap'n claimed the ferro-concrete building principles used in the Sydney Opera House were trialled here first. Great little exhibition and reminiscent of our own Naval Aviation museum in Nowra. The Estonians only ever had 2 subs, built by Vickers Armstrong pre WW1. One sank and the other is an exhibition piece. Of course we clambered about inside. Interestingly the old girl with British heritage is now sporting some decidedly Russky instrument below decks as you might be able to see in some of the photos.

Inside the Seaplane Harbour museum - a maritime history of Estonia

and inside the submarine "Lembit"

Let's see now, bearing 345 minus 11 degrees magnetic variation, at 14 knots with 6 knots current from the east and, oh bugger it, pass the pushers rum again and bring me the GPS.

Pre WWII torpedo tubes inside the "Lembit", Estonia's only submarine.

Yep, that's the Cyrillic alphabet on this instruments

Tonight is our last day in Tallinn. Tomorrow it's off across the Gulf of Finland to Helsinki by ferry. Celebrated a wonderful town with some gastronomic treats. Lunch in a dungeon. Delicious risotto with farmhouse ale and dinner in one of Tallinn's most beautiful courtyards.